PEORIA -- The Peoria Rivermen were more than hockey players in the class-A Southern Professional Hockey League in 2013-14. They had to be healers, with the unenviable task of leading the 32-year franchise into its post-AHL era with a battered fan base.

They looked it in the eye and delivered in the image of their rookie coach, former ECHL and AHL Rivermen player Jean-Guy Trudel, who never signed a contract and worked all season on belief in himself and a handshake.

Bruce Saurs, at 87, came back to reprise his role as Rivermen owner, heading a five-man group that included former Rivermen execs Bart Rogers and John Butler.

They couldn’t launch until mid-May and scrambled to build an organization from the ground up on a short calendar.

Rogers bought the team bus from the Blues, scavenged weight room equipment from the defunct ECHL Trenton team and turned Trudel and assistant coach Kevin Tucker loose.

Off the ice they finished third in league attendance. On it, they went 30-18-8 and finished third.

Trudel made 90 transactions and worked through 48 players, determined to build a contending team while learning the SPHL as he went.

His signature move was acquiring SPHL Goaltender of the Year Kyle Rank in a Dec. 18 trade with Fayetteville.

What did Fayetteville get? “One night’s hotel room expenses when they visited us to play,” Rogers said. “That was the deal. We got Kyle Rank in return for agreeing to pay the cash equivalent of their hotel bill.”

Rank, an all-SPHL first-team selection, set the league record for shutouts (8) and a Peoria franchise shutout record (7), putting the team in the playoffs with a No. 3 seed.

Trudel, meanwhile, put players up to the next level. Eight Rivermen players earned 13 call-ups, more total call-ups than any team in the league. Peoria sent center Garrett Vermeersch — second in the league scoring race, an SPHL all-Rookie team selection and an all-SPHL second-team pick — to ECHL call-ups at Greenville and Fort Wayne.

Overall, the SPHL had 58 players earn 67 call-ups to the ECHL (44), CHL (22) and AHL (1). Pensacola sent nine players up, while Peoria, Bloomington and the Mississippi Surge were next with eight.

Fans packed the Lexus Club at the Civic Center on Opening Night and fell in love with players who made about $350 per week. As one Rivermen player said early in the season, grinning as he walked in from the players’ parking area in the arena, “Those eight or so Escalades are gone, huh?”

Page 2 of 2 - But this crew drove Peoria to its first postseason play in three seasons. Now with a full off-season to work with, the team is already ahead of ticket and sponsorship paces from last summer.

“I think from where we started and where we were at the end, we grew tremendously as an organization and as a fanbase,” Pekin native and Rivermen captain Cole Ruwe said. “The league got so much better this season, really went up in caliber of play. That could continue dramatically depending on what happens to the (high class-A level) CHL.

“I think this inaugural season in Peoria we got a lot of things accomplished, and showed how good it’s going to be next year.”

The Rivermen changed leagues, changed ownership, players and coaches, but in the end suffered the same postseason fate the franchise has endured since 2003, eliminated in the first round.

“We had a great year at home,” Vermeersch said. “So we certainly had high expectations for the playoffs. It’s disappointing beyond description.”

Five minutes after the final horn sounded and the Rivermen were ousted from the playoffs, Trudel stood in the center of the locker room, looked every player in the eye, shook hands with them, and then said:

“Build from this mentally, build from this physically. I am proud of what you gave us this season. We came up short. Be men about it.

“Be stronger for it and come back better for it.”

Dave Eminian covers the Rivermen and Chiefs for the Journal Star. Reach him at 686-3206 or deminian@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @icetimecleve.